Steward said the NBN opens up huge opportunities, not just for service delivery, but the type of service delivery for government agencies and for CIOs looking at accessibility issues and the types of services they can deliver over different channels.

“The NBN will be for personal, business and government-to-government,” she said.

Steward's position is in the Australian Government Information Management Office (AGIMO) within the federal Department of Finance and Deregulation.

AGIMO has been working with Senator Stephen Conroy's Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy which established the NBN Co to develop a new fibre to the premises network across Australia.

“We have been working very closely with colleagues in the Department of Broadband and are looking at the ways agencies will be approaching this from a whole-of-government basis in accessing NBN services,” Steward said.

In keeping with Steward's direction of aggregating government agency IT procurement, she said AGIMO will try to avoid duplication of contracts for NBN-type services.

“For me, it is just fabulous to enable services we have never contemplated before.”

Steward also praised the work of other agencies, including Department of Human Services IT chief, John Wadeson, for their “marvelous work” in using mobile access in remote areas.

“Be it bush fires or floods, rather than respond in stages of emergency let's see what can we do with a different overall service delivery,” she said.

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